Textiles

Today the most interesting among them are ethnographic materials: items of Ukrainian and Russian women’s, men’s and children’s clothing, headwear, belts, and decorative and applied objects; urban dress: costume items and accessories of townspeople of the district towns of Kharkiv Governorate; uniforms: military uniforms and equipment, the clothing of medical workers, railwaymen and members of student construction brigades, and work clothes of workers in various branches of industry; church vestments and items of church plate, samples of fabrics and embroidery, flags, banners, pennants and ribbons.

A significant place in the museum’s collection of clothing belongs to separate memorial complexes. For example, the belongings of H. I. Petrovskyi, head of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee, which he used during his work in Kharkiv, and of H. S. Mohylchenko, twice Hero of Socialist Labour and chairman of the Sergo Ordzhonikidze collective farm in the Lozova district of Kharkiv Oblast.

Theatre costume holds a special place in the collection. Among the items are costumes of O. I. Serdiuk, People’s Artist of the USSR; the wide trousers of I. Marianenko, People’s Artist of the USSR; the wide trousers and belt of the well-known kobzar H. Ilchenko; the headscarf in which the Ukrainian actress M. Zankovetska performed on stage; and the ballet dress of S. Kolyvanova, People’s Artist of the Ukrainian SSR.

A special place among the items of the collection belongs to the collection of flags, among which the Hetman’s flag of 1686–1688 is a unique monument of national symbolism.